


A Vicious and Voracious Hunger

by ncfan



Series: Fictober 2018 [11]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate universe - role swap, Another story of a morally ambiguous lesbian and an unambiguously evil lesbian, Based on a Tumblr Post, Blood and Gore, F/F, Fictober 2018, Gen, Murder, Seem to be doing that a lot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-25
Updated: 2018-10-25
Packaged: 2019-08-07 16:48:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16412204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ncfan/pseuds/ncfan
Summary: The moment Gertrude opened the door to Mary's bookshop, she was hit by the copper scent of blood. When she opened the door to Mary's study, she saw exactly what she expected to see: a dead man lying on the floor on a tarpaulin, and Mary sitting at her desk, cleaning her straight razor, a soft, misshapen book lying open in front of her. [Written for Fictober 2018]





	A Vicious and Voracious Hunger

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [twelve-to-the-highest-power](https://twelve-to-the-highest-power.tumblr.com/)’s [post](https://twelve-to-the-highest-power.tumblr.com/post/177809384939/more-roleswap-au-where-gertrude-is-promoted-to) about a role-swap AU between Jon and Gertrude.
> 
> Written for the prompt, “Oh please, like this is the worst I have done.”
> 
> [ **CN/TW** : Blood, murder, gore]

They were separated on the way back to Mary’s shop, with Mary’s harsh whisper of “I’ll lure him in; take your time” ringing in Gertrude’s ears, and no, she did _not_ take her time. She’d never been one for lazy strolls, anyhow.

The moment Gertrude opened the (unlocked) front door into Mary’s bookshop, she was hit by a thick, cloying wave of coppery blood. Gertrude bit back a sigh—she was trying to avoid inhaling too much of that smell—and started up the stairs. If not for that smell, she might have been concerned by how all the usually-neat stacks of books positioned at various points on the staircase were left knocked over and strewn about.

Gertrude opened the door to Mary’s study, and saw exactly what she expected to see: a dead man lying in a pool of blood on top of a tarpaulin spread out on the floor, and Mary sitting at her desk, wiping her straight razor clean, while a soft, misshapen book sat open in front of her.

“You must be very careful,” Mary said casually, her short bob of blonde hair falling across her face, but not enough to hide the smile that curled over her lips, “not to get any stray blood on the pages. It sort of… Well, I suppose the best way to describe it is that it scrambles the signal. They become distorted and incomprehensible, even worse than my early attempts. Completely useless, and washing the blood off does not solve the problem. The pages are just a complete loss.”

Under other circumstances, gaining some insight into how the skin book worked would have been more than welcome. Other circumstances. Gertrude’s eyes swept over their ex-pursuer, a man who had given his name as Calvin White—yes, definitely dead; the gaping wound on his neck from which that red sea issued spelled death as surely as anything could—and looked up, glaring. “Mary.”

Mary just laughed, a hollow, whispery sound that didn’t suit her at all. It sounded like wind passing through empty wooden wind chimes. “Oh, please, like this is the worst I have done.”

“I did want to ask him some questions,” Gertrude told her sharply, nudging a dry part of the corpse with her foot. “This man is—was—our best connection to the Circus.”

“Oh, and you shall, Gertrude; don’t you fret.” Mary took off her coat, rolled up her sleeves to reveal pale forearms with that thin, jagged scar scrawled from right elbow nearly all the way to the wrist parting the fine hair in a winding pink line. “After all, I’ve never heard of the Stranger employing a truly human agent before; it got me very curious. This way, you can ask him your questions without risking him harming either of us, and we don’t have to worry about what to do with him after. And if it turns out that you cannot compel the dead, well—“ Mary smiled secretively “—I have methods of my own. Really, it’s an ideal solution.”

“Only ideal if you don’t botch the job.”

Now, Mary’s voice sharpened ever so slightly. “I won’t. I’ve not been a novice at this for many years.”

“And I suppose your wanting to keep him factored into your judgment not at all?”

Mary laughed again, high and still hollow like wind chimes. “I didn’t say _that_. Here, now, roll up your sleeves and help me get him ready. He’s a big man, after all; I’d have some trouble doing this by myself.”

Gertrude couldn’t ignore the gleam of naked hunger in Mary’s dark eyes as she advanced on the dead man, the way it made her face look sharp and lean, like a bird of prey descending on its quarry—maybe a hawk, but a vulture seemed the more apt comparison, considering their current circumstances. Mary Keay had a reputation for many different things in their sphere, but what Gertrude was learning was that it always came back to her propensity for poaching, one way or another.

Even now, Gertrude struggled to piece together when she had first seen that hunger, when she had first known it for what it was. She’d not been looking for it at the start; it had crept up on her like night sometimes did in winter, when she thought she had more time than she actually did to do something before the sun set. For the brief amount of time in which Gertrude had thought that this was going to be a normal archiving job, just like any of the others she’d had (one with an albeit suspiciously-deceased, horrifically paranoid predecessor), she wasn’t watching for things like voracious hunger in Mary’s eyes.

The day Mary had first shown her the book was indelibly marked upon Gertrude’s mind, however. Sometimes her dreams featured skin and blood, ink and stitches, and she remembered quite clearly the first night she’d had such a dream. She wondered, sometimes, why Mary never spoke of them. Perhaps the ability to bear such dreams stoically originated from the same place as what had led her to add pages to the book in the first place.

The Unknowing was practically on their doorstep; the last thing in the world Gertrude could afford to have was _qualms_. Many a time, she needed someone with her less erratic than Daisy, and more readily available than Adelard. Mary was both. Mary’s skillset had thus far been invaluable, and all she asked in return was the chance to poach. Gertrude never had figured out what she did with the bodies after she’d taken what she wanted from them. Given that the police had yet to come looking for Mary Keay, she suspected the only way she’d ever know would be if she compelled her, and compelling was like wearing a shirt of steel wool. Outside of interrogations, it was a tool that nothing could persuade her to use.

Still, that hunger of Mary’s was voracious and vicious. Sated for a time with new additions to her collection, but it reared its head eventually, and there were times when Gertrude caught her staring ravenously at someone while they worked. Anyone who fit Mary’s criteria to be ‘interesting.’ Sometimes, she looked at Gertrude’s assistants that way. And sometimes, she looked at Gertrude with something that wasn’t quite that, was hooded with something else, but was close kin.

One day, Gertrude would have to do something about it. One day.

Today, she spared another glance for the corpse and sighed, before rolling up her sleeves and helping Mary to get his shirt off and turn him onto his back. As Mary scrubbed his bloody back clean, Gertrude said to her, “At least discuss it with me first, the next time you decide to do this. It may be that we genuinely need that person alive, and we can’t undo it if someone dies who needed to stay alive.”

“Of course, of course,” Mary murmured, but she barely seemed to be listening. Once she began the process of collecting, her focus became fine-tuned upon the task, and everything outside of it all but completely fell away. “Anything you want, Gertrude.”

After White had been sufficiently stripped and scrubbed, Mary took a knife from her pocket (not the straight razor; the straight razor was apparently meant for one purpose, and one purpose only) and began her grisly work. There was a part of Gertrude, small and growing smaller and feebler with every passing day, that wanted to look away, if only because it would have been spitting in the eye of the Beholding, if only because she knew Mary wanted her watching and Mary had _not_ done as Gertrude wanted by killing this man before she could wrest his secrets from him.

A part of her wanted to look away. Instead, she stared on as that wickedly sharp knife separated skin from muscle on White’s broad back, as beads of blood (but so much less blood than Gertrude would have expected) sprang up at the neat incisions ( _long practice_ ). She watched open-eyed and oddly detached as Mary peeled the skin back, as that ripping and squelching exposed tissue and muscle that glistened wetly under the lamplight. This was part of her now. There was no use denying her nature. She was hungry for it, the way Mary was hungry for her poaching. Stepping in to help with the flaying would have felt… wrong, though Gertrude fought against that wrongness often enough in the interest of safeguarding the world. She could accept its presence and fight against it, too, so long as it gave her the power to safeguard the world the way it was now. To keep it from being changed as she was changing.

“Alright.” Mary was hanging the page up on fishing wire to dry almost before Gertrude knew what was happening. Her pale face was flushed and her eyes shone in a way that they only ever did when the promise of a new page was within grasp. It was entrancing, and not meant for Gertrude in any way. Mary didn’t bother to clean her hands this time, and she clapped a red-smeared hand on Gertrude’s shoulder, staining her cardigan, before favoring her with an uncommonly sunny smile. “Now, we wait for it to dry a little before I make the entry. There’s a science to choosing the right time to write the words; the results won’t be what we want if we miss that window.” Her smile widened. “Stay here for the time being, Gertrude. You’ve never seen what goes into making the perfect entry. I think you’d be interested.”

Yes, very interested. When Gertrude shivered, it was with a mix of foreboding and something close to ecstasy.


End file.
